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Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Texans.

Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.

The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.

We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.

No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”

Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.

Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”